August 2009

This is from X-Factor in the UK. If I didn’t manage my hair this is what it would look like, I can’t sing like this though.

Here are the first batch of entries in the Clown of Campbells Bay Photoshop competition.

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I love this song.

One of my contributors has suggested a photoshop competition.

Take this photo and photoshop it to show something on The Clown’s screen other than the North Shore City Council website. Incidentally is there anyone else out there surprised that vast amounts of ratepayers money have been spent on a website that will exist for only one year?

Anyway, send them in via email to tipline@gotcha.co.nz and I’ll post a gallery of them.

North Shore City has launched a new website and whaddya know look who reads Gotcha!.

Clown of Campbell's Bay reading Gotcha!

Len Brown has been interviewed by Michelle Hewitson. As is usual she slays the politician.

The other thing about him that gives you a start is that he’s a 52-year-old white bloke in a good suit who uses some very odd language.

He says “down with”; he tells the photographer that if he doesn’t find the right “vibes” for his picture we can try another location. And, of course, he has been known to do the odd rap – very odd, in my opinion.

Yes that was an odd rap. But the interview gets a whole lot more cringe-worthy.

Yes, he well might. I’d asked whether he could do the posturing required of a Super City mayoral candidate and he said, “I can do singing and dancing.”

Are you sure? I asked. I was thinking of the rap he did at the Pacific Music Awards, which was shown on telly and which I could only watch bits of, from behind my fingers. I told him this, but his feelings weren’t hurt a bit.

“I spend a lot of my time with young people and what I’m doing is reaching out to them and saying, ‘I don’t want bars between you and me’.”

I advised him to cut out the rapping. But of course I wanted him to do one. I thought it would make a funny picture. He said, ha, ha, that I was now his main adviser and he had taken the advice on board. And so, no, he wasn’t going to oblige.

Yes the rapping was truly cringe-inducing but the dancing was just laughable. The man make a mockery of his position. What is more perplexing is that when asked about his qualifications to run the Super-City he says he can “do a bit of singing and dancing”.

Hewitson just keeps shanking him though;

So his worst fault may be that he, like many a politician, is capable of exaggerating for what he thinks is the required effect. Or that he even attempted to answer the question.

He’s the nice and happy mayor, which is not as snappy as the rappy mayor (it must be catching.) He is also, as I rather feared he would be, a kissy one.

“I’m a huggy, kissy type of guy,” he announced, unprompted. Not, I hope, in the mayoral workplace. Even he has his limits. “No, I don’t run around sort of hugging and kissing the secretaries. That would be a weakness!”

Great! This guy is going to stand for the Super-City mayoralty on a platform of singing, dancing, rapping, being happy and a huggy, kissy kind of guy. What a complete fool. The only person more stupid than Len Brown in Auckland right now is the Clown of Campbells Bay. Conor Roberts is probably spitting his cornies all over the paper about now.

But wait there’s more as the advert says and there ain’t no free steak knives, it’s more cringe.

When he visits kids he tells them that “I love them, that the community loves them …”

That might sound like drippy waffle. “No, it’s not. It’s someone who’s not afraid to express their emotions and I’m not afraid to get out there and express mine.”

He’s a Catholic who prays, on his knees, sometimes in the mayoral office, for guidance.

Good grief! The happy, snappy, rappy, dancing, prancing, huggy, kissy, kneeling, praying candidate, just what we need!

The interview gets better;

I tried to get him to say something mean about John Banks. No luck there. He gave me a list of things Banks is good at which was longer than the list of things he’s good at. I tried to get him to say something mean about Rodney Hide.

Banksie will be pleased with that, his main rival for the job of Super-City has just endorsed him as more qualified than him. I can see the signs now. “Vote Banks, endorsed by Brown”.

The final ignominy is left to the penultimate paragraph;

I’ll agree that he’s not gifted at joke-telling. He told a terrible one, in response to my teasing him about how he’ll undoubtedly get all puffed up and important if he’s the Super Mayor. “I think I’m about as puffed up as my wife wants me to be. I’m sitting three or four kilos over what I should be.”

That makes him the happy, snappy, rappy, dancing, prancing, huggy, kissy, kneeling, praying, huffy, puffy candidate. No thanks.

Finally we have a government that can see sense in reefing the vast mineral wealth contained in the Conservation Estate out of the  ground and making some dosh for this country.

It is said, not sure by whom, but I ahve heard it said, that NZ is wealthier in minerals per head of population than Australia.

Plus if it pisses off the Greens then I’m all for it.

Reef out the minerals and get out economy booming.

Speaking of getting bulldozers moving when is the Waterview connection going to start?

Paula Bennett is a proud Westie chick and so it is no surprise what her car looks like.

Westie Mobile - Photo from Stuff.co.nz

Jetstar move from one cluster-fuck to the next.

Customers booking international flights on the cut-price airline Jetstar have been shocked by some sky-high fares – one customer’s flight was quoted at more than $1.3 trillion.

The airline yesterday said a computer glitch had led to the inflated prices and apologised to anyone surprised to find such costly fares.

One booking summary sent to the Herald showed a return ticket to Japan that would cost $1,324,930,000,000. The correct total was $1324.93.

The price of another passenger’s return flights from Auckland to Sydney was $321,630,000,000 when it should have been $321.63.

Sheesh, haven’t they heard about change management. I hope they service their airplanes better than they fix their websites. Then again they use Airbus’ so there isn’t really much hope for them.

My usual retort to being called a cunt is to say that cunts are useful.

And so that would be the meaning that Rodney Hide put on being called a cunt by Tau Henare.

Both of these blokes are actually good cunts so they’ll get over it. There will not be any faux outrage from this blog either. We applaud strong language and use it frequently.

Cunt is a fantastic word, like “fuck” and its derivatives, can been used as noun, pronoun, adjective, participle and other parts of speech. So versatile. Germaine Greer has said that “it is one of the few remaining words in the English language with a genuine power to shock.”

I reckon though that Tau Henare stands a good chance of beating Chris Carter next election now. The Westies of Te Atatu appreciate someone who can swear and curse like them. I reckon Tau should put up signs all around the electorate like “Get rid of the pooftah cunt and vote for a good cunt”. He’ll bolt in for sure.

We should actually be praising Tau for his forthrightness on the issue, it has been a long time in NZ politics since strong minded people have been able to speak their minds.

Tau Henare can join the Auckland Chapter of the Rude Men’s Society….good on him.